Aleksandar Ranković "Leka" (; 1909–1983) was a Yugoslav communist politician of Serbian origin considered to be the third most powerful man in Yugoslavia after Josip Broz Tito and Edvard Kardelj. Ranković was a proponent of a centralized Yugoslavia and opposed efforts that promoted decentralization that he deemed to be against the interests of Serb unity; he ran Kosovo as a police state and made Serbs dominant in Kosovo's nomenklatura. Ranković supported a hardline approach against Albanians in Kosovo who were commonly suspected of pursuing seditious activities.